UAE on course for renewables target - Masdar CEO

Masdar's Al Jaber is confident that the UAE can meet its renewables pledge.

The framework is in place for the UAE to deliver seven percent of its power needs from renewable energy sources by 2020, Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company (Masdar) CEO Dr Sultan Al Jaber has said.

In a speech to a US University, the CEO also said the Masdar project would develop practical technologies that can be run on alternative energy, including solar and wind.

Of the 2020 target, Al Jaber said: "The framework is in place to achieve that goal."

"We will make it [alternative energy] commercially viable and offer it to the world," he added in comments published by media in Toledo following his speech.

Although Masdar was on budget, it was a few months behind schedule, Al Jaber said, adding that the delays were due to the fact that the Masdar concept had never been tried before.

"All the experts, the architects and contractors, none of them knew how to make [Masdar City]. It's never been done in the history of the world," he told the university audience.

"The United Arab Emirates has the third-largest oil reserves in the world. But that does not mean oil and gas will be there forever," said Al Jaber, who is in charge of a $22bn effort to build a 45,000-people city that runs on alternative energy and has no carbon emissions.

"Our interest here is very genuine. It's a logical extension, the next step," he said.

Last month, Al Jaber said Masdar was not about to scale back its plans.

Al Jaber said the UAE would continue to play an "increasingly prominent role in the clean energy sphere, deliver on its commitments and support to international climate negotiations and environmental protection".

Earlier, Richard Reynolds, the head of supply-chain management at the zero-carbon Masdar City project, said a revised Masdar plan would be finalised "fairly imminently".

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